The present invention relates to molding/assembling method and apparatus for molding and assembling molded products, e.g., shell halves constituting a casing for a microfloppy disc (hereinafter referred to simply as an MFD). Moreover, the present invention further relates to an aligning/dropping mechanism for allowing molded products, e.g., shell halves constituting a casing for the MFD to drop by their own tare while they are aligned with each other in order to take out the molded products to the outside from an injection molding system.
Shell halves constituting a casing for an MFD have been hitherto molded and assembled together in the following manner. Specifically, an upper shell half and a lower shell half for the MFD are simultaneously molded in an injection molding machine and the molded shell halves are then taken out from the injection molding machine by actuating robot hands. Subsequently, the upper shell half and the lower shell half are assembled with each other in an assembling unit installed adjacent to the injection molding machine to produce a casing for an MFD. After completion of the assembling operation, the casing is conveyed from the assembling unit to a stocker or the like.
However, with the conventional molding/assembling method and apparatus constructed in the above-described manner, it is necessary to additionally arrange a robot unit for dislocating a molded product of shell half, an assembling unit for assembling shell halves together and a conveyor for conveying an assembled product of the casing to the outside wherein each of the foregoing units is arranged or installed adjacent to or in the vicinity of the injection molding machine. Consequently, there arises a problem that a large space is required for installing the whole injection molding system.
In addition, with the conventional molding/assembling method and apparatus, since each molded shell half is taken out from an injection molding die by actuating the robot unit, it is necessary that the injection molding die is widely opened so as to enable an attractive portion of the robot unit to be brought in and then taken out from the injection molding die after each injection molding operation is completed. Because of the foregoing necessity, a die opening time is lengthened, and moreover, a time for bringing the attractive portion of the robot unit in the injection molding die and then taking it out from the injection molding die is additionally required, resulting in a cycle time for each injection molding operation being undesirably lengthened.